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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Day 5 - Magic Kingdom (again)

Our final day at Disney arrived. It was a bit sad as there was so much that we were unable to see and do but I was absolutely exhausted at this point. We decided to end our trip by visiting Frontierland and Adventureland.

Grammy and Rich enjoy coffee in the morning and apparently the coffee from the little place at the Transportation and Ticket Center was yuck so we stopped at Main Street Bakery. This was just supposed to be a breakfast-on-the-go type of stop so while we were inhaling pastries and allocating chocolate milk on the sidewalk, an impromptu parade come through. (I don't know if it was really impromptu but I didn't know anything about it and they didn't rope anything off like they do for the big parades so I'm calling it impromptu.) Anyway, I considered us to be in the right place at the right time. The girls loved pointing out all the characters and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

And then it was off to Frontierland.

The girls spotted Donald Duck when we entered Frontierland and they just had to met him. Allie was really getting into the characters by this point. I couldn't believe that she was hugging him.

Allie also brought Elmo to see the Magic Kingdom that last day. He had spent the previous four days hanging out in the hotel room with some new friends. She put Elmo down to hug Donald and as the girls were getting up to leave, Donald picked him up and acted sad that she had an Elmo and not a Donald. I've tried to explain this to Allie but she kept saying, "We can get an Elmo for Donald Duck," or, "We can get a Donald Duck for Donald Duck." If you call him just Donald, she will say, "No. It's Donald Duck."

The Country Bear Jamboree plays continuously so we only had to wait 10 minutes or so for that attraction. The girls really liked this one.

Now, here's where I should have been better with my planning. I thought that there was a playground on Tom Sawyer Island. There was but it wasn't what you would think a playground would be. I hate to say that it was a waste of our time but it sort of was. I consulted my guidebook after the fact to read that it is great for kids over the age of 5. Not only do I concur, I don't know how I missed that little fact to begin with.

Fighting over the big wheel. {Sigh.}

After a snack and some more bathroom breaks, we headed over to Adventureland to ride the Magic Carpets of Aladdin. Just as with Dumbo, this ride received six thumbs up. As we exited the ride, I spotted a meet and greet with Aladdin and Jasmine. {Insert gasping here.}

The girls like Jasmine and I knew that she was on their hit list of princesses to see. There was nothing in the Times Guide about her meeting and greeting. While we had been waiting in line the day before to see Anastasia, Drizella and Lady Tremaine, I had asked the college kid, who was very friendly and talkative and monitoring the line, if there were any other princesses that we could met. I went through the list of who we had seen and he NEVER mentioned Jasmine.

So of course, the line was closed but Jasmine was coming back out in 25 minutes. Just a note - if this happens to you and you want to wait, talk to the person monitoring the line. They were all extremely friendly and told us where to stand so that when they did open the line again, we would be first.

Jasmine and Aladdin asked if the girls were triplets. Jasmine even said, "I see that the Genie is duplicating people again."

If you can't tell what's going on, Jasmine was tickling Emily while we were taking pictures. It was such a cute moment, especially since Em was having kind of a tough day. (You may be able to see some bruises and scrapes on Em's face. I'll have to get into that later.) AND I could not believe that Allie and Anna stood next to Aladdin! A boy!

Now up until this point, I had only purchased a few Christmas items from the gift shop at our resort. We had also allowed the girls to pick out Mickey ears but that was it. They never asked for anything else. A lot of those rides dump you out into a store so you have no choice but to walk past toys and other Disney paraphernalia. There was no begging. No crying. Nothing.

So for that last afternoon, we told the girls that they could each pick out one toy. They were so excited and thankfully went for the less than $15 toys. Allie was eyeing a princess nightgown at first and I was imagining WWIII breaking out over having only one princess nightgown. Plus, they can't play with a princess nightgown and these gifts were twofold - entertainment for the car ride home.

Speaking of the car ride home, we left Magic Kingdom a bit earlier than I wanted to because we had early dinner reservations and then we had to pack. {Insert sighing here.} I know some people would just throw all of the clothes into the suitcases and be done with it but we were trying to stay a bit organized to save us time later on. Plus, we wanted to pack up as much as possible into the van that night instead of in the morning.

Because we were going to be staying in hotels on the way home, we wanted to reduce the amount of baggage that we would have to lug into and out of the hotels. I have this awesome weekend travel bag that I used to pack up clothes and pajamas for the girls and me and Rich. So for our hotel stay on the way down to Orlando, we only had to carry in that weekend bag plus a small cosmetic case instead of three big suitcases. For the ride home, we weren't as organized and Allie was being super finicky about her clothing so we also brought in a tiny suitcase I had packed with extra "emergency" clothes.

~It may be hard to believe but I still have more to blog about. Hope you aren't bored!~

Loving the Disney review. We are thinking about going with our girls (6.5 and twin 2.5s) but I think the little ones are a bit too little. I think 3.5 will be a better age - even if they aren't free, they'll enjoy it much more.So curious about how the sleeping away from home went. Blog on!

I'm not bored either....we're going to Disney in February and I need all the tips I can get. It's our first major trip (including airplane) with the twins (who will be almost 4 and our oldest who is 10) and I'm excited/scared :-)

Anon - it this really sturdy weekend bag I picked up on super clearance like 15 years ago from a travel store that was closing.

erinlaughs - we had the unofficial guide book by Bob Sehlinger. The Wave was really good. If you are looking for counter service in the Magic Kingdom, Casey's was decent if you like hot dogs. The fries were REALLY good.

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Hi, I'm Sarah, mom to identical triplet girls (Emily, Anna and Allie) and a forever sleeping baby (Abigail.) For many, many years, I worked as a CPA in the tax world but now I'm enjoying an early retirement and time at home with my girls. For more, see the About Me page

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